Tag: Portland OR

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Portland’s Small Million Shares Anthemic Ballad “FOMO”

Rooted in the collaboration of longtime creative partners Ryan Linder and Malachi Graham, Portland, OR-based indie pop outfit Small Million specializes in pairing deeply affecting sonic production informed by Linder’s background as a filmmaker with smart, lived-in lyrics about intuition and inhibition, losing control and ending up in unexpected places, being willing to fuck up, bodies being joyful, bodies being hurt and more. The end result is work that’s simultaneously intimate yet epic, delicate yet fierce. 

Since 2018’s Young Fools EP, several years of experiencing chronic pain have led Small Million’s frontperson Malachi Graham to deep explorations of embodiment that have changed everything from her singing voice to her dance movies to her observations of human frailty. “There’s one side of chronic pain that leads you towards intuition, self-discovery, and listening closely to yourself. But it also means you end up sitting on the side of the room a lot, watching people and paying attention. Also you’re pissed,” Graham explains. 

Linder and Graham have been writing together as a duo but they recently expanded into a quartet, with the addition of Small Skies‘ Ben Tyler (drums) and Lo Pony‘s Kale Chesney (bass, backing vocals). Fittingly, their evolution into a quartet has resulted in the band’s sound and approach expanding to encompass more rock-based instrumentation and energy. 

Small Million have been releasing material throughout the course of the year, including “Burnout,” a hook-driven bit of pop built around Graham’s ethereal melody, glistening guitar lines and a driving rhythm section. But underneath the infectiousness of the song is a sort of revenge fantasy about the feminine urge to destroy the male self-serving and flat vision of you, and dance in the rubble and flames. “My mom always told me to beware of being a ‘flattering mirror;’ to watch out for people who adore you because they love how you make them feel about themselves,” Small Million’s Malachi Graham explains.

“FOMO,” the Portland-based outfit’s latest single is big, heart-worn-on-sleeve ballad built around Graham’s yearning delivery, glistening synths, reverb-soaked drums paired with enormous, shout along worthy hooks. At its core, “FOMO” is an earnest and swooning celebration of devotion — both platonic and romantic.

“This video is a love letter to the fast food napkins in your glove box, to the slice of pie behind hazy glass. It’s a reminder to leave cash tips, and make your friends run errands with you,” Kale Chesney, the accompanying video’s director says of the video. “Life is hard enough as it is, don’t forget to find beauty in the mundane. If I had to summarize Ryan and Malachi’s friendship from the back seat It would boil down to this simple gesture: during a drive, of any length of time, the two of them will constantly show each other songs they love and are inspired by. But every single time they press play, the end up turning the volume down 15 seconds into it because one of them is so genuinely interested to hear what the other is saying. I’ve never seen anything so sweet and and gently chaotic.”

Small Million’s forthcoming album Passenger will be released through Tender Loving Empire. Be on the lookout for it, y’all.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Small Million Shares a Hook-Driven Feminist Anthem

Rooted in the collaboration of longtime creative partners Ryan Linder and Malachi Graham, Portland, OR-based indie pop outfit Small Million specializes in pairing deeply affecting sonic production informed by Linder’s background as a filmmaker with smart, lived-in lyrics about intuition and inhibition, losing control and ending up in unexpected places, being willing to fuck up, bodies being joyful, bodies being hurt and more. The end result is work that’s simultaneously intimate yet epic, delicate yet fierce.

Since 2018’s Young Fools EP, years of experiencing chronic pain have led Small Million’s frontperson Malachi Graham to deep explorations of embodiment that have changed everything from her singing voice to her dance movies to her observations of human frailty. “There’s one side of chronic pain that leads you towards intuition, self-discovery, and listening closely to yourself. But it also means you end up sitting on the side of the room a lot, watching people and paying attention. Also you’re pissed,” Graham explains.

Linder and Graham have been writing together as a duo but they recently expanded into a quartet, with the addition of Small Skies‘ Ben Tyler (drums) and Lo Pony‘s Kale Chesney (bass, backing vocals. Fittingly, their evolution into a quartet has resulted in the band’s sound and approach expanding to encompass more rock-based instrumentation and energy.

The Portland-based outfit have been releasing new music throughout the course of the year, including their latest single “Burnout,” which will appear on their forthcoming album Passenger, slated for release through Tender Loving Empire. “Burnout” is a hook-driven bit of pop built around Graham’s ethereal vocal melody, glistening guitar lines, and a driving rhythm section. But underneath the infectiousness of the song is a sort of revenge fantasy about the feminine urge to destroy the male self-serving and flat vision of you, and dance in the rubble and flames. “My mom always told me to beware of being a ‘flattering mirror;’ to watch out for people who adore you because they love how you make them feel about themselves,” Small Million’s Malachi Graham explains.

News/Announcements by William Ruben Helms

Generally speaking, the music festival experience is pretty much the same — whether you’ve been to one or dozens of them, like myself. Reinvented last year, Pickathon redefines the music festival experience as an immersive choose-your-own-adventure experience, where attendees can discover music, arts and culture perfectly integrated into the natural wonders of Happy Valley, Oregon‘s Pendarvis Farm, located 16 miles outside of Portland.

Late last month, festival organizes announced that the 2023 edition will take place August 3, 2023-August 6, 2023, along with the festival’s music lineup. This year’s edition will continue the festival’s reputation for eclecticism and its ability to spot the next breakout band across a variety of genres while featuring: indie roots outfit Watchhouse, the legendary Lee Fields, alt-glam band Dehd, rising singer/songwriter Madison Cunningham, Zambian psych rockers W.I.T.C.H., Thee Sinseers, The Altons, the acclaimed Mailian artist Vieux Farka Touré, desert blues outfit Imarhan, rising bluegrass banjo and Venezuelan harp duo Larry & Joe, Bay Area African psych rock outfit Orchestra Gold, post-internet jazz project MonoNeon, the Native American powwow-meets-electroinc music-meets-Bon Ives-like soundscapes of Joe Rainey, Yot Club, Columbian psychedelic cumbia outfit Meridian Brothers, Peruvian electro pop group Novalima, Mexican punk rockers Sgt. Papers, acclaimed Canadian rapper TOBi, Tampa-based experimentalists They Hate Change and jazz funk outfit Butcher Brown.

As always country and honky tonk still holds a strong presence with acts like Nick Shoulders, The Kernal and Courtney Marie Andrews on the bill. Rising indie rock artists Wednesday, MJ Lenderman and Florist are also on the bill. The full lineup and festival playlist are below.

Pickathon 2023 Full Lineup

  • Watchouse
  • Lee Fields
  • Dehd
  • Madison Cunningham
  • Vieux Farka Touré
  • Florist
  • W.I.T.C.H.
  • Wednesday
  • MonoNeon
  • Ocie Elliott
  • Butcher Brown
  • Yot Club
  • Courtney Marie Andrews
  • Imarhan
  • Say She She
  • MJ Lenderman
  • Madison McFerrin
  • The Po’ Ramblin’ Boys
  • They Hate Change
    Andrew Marlin
  • Pachyman
  • Wine Lips 
  • Nikki Nair
  • GA-20
  • Nick Shoulders
  • Wayne Graham
  • Mike Dillon’s Punkadelic!
  • Rich Ruth
  • The Altons
  • Thee Sinseers
  • Novalima
  • Logan Ledger
  • Meridian Brothers
  • TOBi
  • Emily Nenni
  • Mikaela Davis 
  • Joe Rainey
  • Riddy Arman
  • The Mountain Grass Unit
  • The Kernal
  • Larry & Joe
  • Hooveriii
  • Gel
  • Jackie Venson
  • Nat Myers 
  • Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves
  • Sgt. Papers
  • Orchestra Gold
  • WHIMZ
  • Sprig of That
  • The Shivas
  • MØTRIK

“Reinventing Pickathon last year around the concept of integrating music, arts, and culture into the natural settings of Pendarvis Farm was an incredible endeavor,” Pickathon founder Dale Schoenborn says. “2023 not only presents our best lineup ever, but now we understand the new Pickathon Neighborhoods even better, and we’re excited to refine all the details to make this year our most immersive experience to date. I can’t wait for everyone to join us at Pendarvis Farm!”

Early bird tickets end today. Camping, parking, shuttles and everything else you need to get to the farm is on sale now, too. That information can be found here.


Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Joseph Shares Buoyant and Anthemic “The Sun”

After a busy weekend covering The New Colossus Festival‘s fourth edition, I wound up catching a real nasty cold that has kicked my ass: I’ve felt miserable for the past four days or so. And unfortunately, because we live together, my mother caught what I had. So it sounds a bit like a sick ward here. But somehow, the show must go on, as best as it could. right?

Portland, OR-based sibling indie pop trio Joseph — Natalie Closner Schepman and her two, younger twin sisters Meegan and Allison — derive their name from two different sources: their grandfather Jo and the tiny town of Joseph, OR, in which he was born and raised. The Closner Sisters grew up in a musical household: their dad was a jazz singer and drummer, while their mom was a theater teacher. But their group can trace its origins back to around 2014: Closner Schepman, who had been pursuing a career as a singer/songwriter at the time, recruited her sisters to join her in a new project. When the Closners began working together, they quickly recognized an irresistible and undeniable creative chemistry. 

The trio quickly developed a reputation for playing intimate house shows, in which they would accompany themselves with acoustic guitar and a foot drum. Within their first yet of being a group, they self-released their debut, 2014s Native Dreamer Kin, which caught the attention of ATO Records, who signed the group the following year.

After releasing 2015’s, ATO Sessions EP, an acoustic, two song, digital EP and accompanying video series, the sibling trio went on to release their Mike Mogis-produced, label debut 2016’s I’m Alone, No You’re Not, which featured the smash hit “White Flag,” which landed on on Spotify’s US Viral Top Ten Chart within days of its release. By that October, the track landed at #1 on the Adult Alternative Charts.

Building both the rapidly growing buzz surrounding them and a growing profile, the trio made their rounds of the national and international talk show circuit with appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Later . . . with Jools Holland, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Conan, CBS This Morning and Today. They also made the rounds of the global festival circuit with stops at  Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival, Sasquatch Festival, Glastonbury Festival, Outside Lands Festival, Pilgrimage Music Festival and several others. And they opened for James Bay during his sold out 2016 arena tour.

2019’s Christian “Leggy” Langdon-produced sophomore album Good Luck, Kid saw the trio pushing their sound in a grittier, more dynamic direction while retaining the gorgeous harmonies and earnest vocal deliveries that won them acclaim across the blogosphere and elsewhere. “The through-line of the album is this idea of moving into the driver’s seat of your own life–recognizing that you’re an adult now, and everything’s up to you from this moment on,” Natalie Closner Schepman explained in press notes. “You’re not completely sure of how to get where you need to go, and you don’t have any kind of a map to help you. It’s just the universe looking down on you like, ‘Good luck, kid.’”

The sibling trio’s fourth official album, the Tucker Martine and  Christian “Leggy” Langdon co-produced The Sun is slated for an April 28, 2023 release through their longtime label home ATO Records. The album reportedly sees the group working with a collection of new collaborators and making yet another vibrant sonic shift while retaining the craft, three-part harmonies and hard-fought and harder-won lyrical wisdom that they’ve been known for throughout their career. But unlike its predecessors, The Sun sees the sibling trio taking a decidedly more hands-on role in the production process. The result is an album of material that sees Joseph spinning incredibly complex concepts into anthemic, sing-along ready pop that serves as a backdrop for the trio’s fearless and deeply personal storytelling from each of their perspectives. 

Thematically, the forthcoming album sees the trio focusing their soul-searching songwriting on the quietly damaging forces that keep us from living fully in our truth — e.g., gaslighting, cultural conditioning, unconscious yet painfully limiting self-beliefs and the like. Drawing on hard lessons from relationships and personal growth through therapy, The Sun reportedly shares stories of taking control of your own fate, making difficult decisions in the name of becoming yourself and weathering the highs and lows of love while keeping the faith — and importantly, tending to ourselves with presence and compassion. “All of our therapists were a huge influence on this album,” the sibling trio say in press notes. 

Earlier this year, I wrote about “Nervous System,” a punchy pop song rooted in deep. personal experience, the rousingly anthemic, sing-along friendly choruses the trio is known for, and big-hearted, earnest compassion. Fittingly the song — and its narrator — discusses being our own lifeline during times of anxiety, struggle and uncertainty. “It’s about self regulating and tending to ourselves with presence and compassion, rather than frantically reaching outside of ourselves,” the trio explain. Alison Closner adds “I’ve struggled with a lot of anxiety over the years, at times a constant inner storm, and it’s been easy to look outside myself to feel safe and secure. I’ve fought to find my inner peace, and through that process I’ve found that so much of the time I already have what it takes to calm my nervous system.”

The Sun‘s latest single, album title track “The Sun” is a shimmering, buoyant and fittingly summery pop anthem and a righteously defiant tell-off to a relationship that has made you feel small and insignificant while recognizing — and perhaps for some, reclaiming — one’s own power, integrity and sense of self. Much like the previously released material from the album, the song is rooted in universal yet deeply personal experiences, which add to its rousingly anthemic nature.

Interestingly, “The Sun” was one of the first songs recorded for the album, and it wound up being something of a sonic breakthrough for the trio. The trio took a slowed down, serious and acoustic version of the song on the road. testing it for audiences while opening for The Shins. But when it came down to lay the track down, the song with the help of their longtime producer, became the buoyant and summery version you’re hearing now — while rooted in Meegan Closner’s own experiences of working through the lessons of a past relationship./

“Many times I have found myself in a position where I’m stuck in cycles of negative self-talk” Meegan Closner explains. “Times when I have seen myself as bad and struggle seeing any other possible truth. This song is my higher self speaking to that me. It’s me reminding myself that I am more than I think I am.” 

The song’s shift into its defiantly buoyant version, mirrors the album’s underlying narrative. “The whole album is a sort of thinking through of the story that you tell about yourself, to yourself,” Joseph’s Natalie Closner says, “It’s about looking at whatever is diminishing you or making you believe in these limitations you’ve put on yourself, and then finally asking, ‘What if I’m more than that?’” 

Directed by Justin Frick, the accompanying video for “The Sun” is as ebullient, joyous as the song it accompanies while capturing the Closners irresistible energy — and their profoundly tight bond. But more importantly, the video nods at the themes of the song: Meegan and her sisters are initially in various stages of shadow before being in brilliant spotlight, with the sisters boldly claiming their space.

women who kick ass by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dreckig Shares Propulsive and Dreamy “Non Zero Sum”

Portland, OR-based electro pop duo Dreckig — married couple Papi Fimbres and Shana Lindbeck — derive their project’s name from the German word for dirty. Believing that destiny led them to meet each other, the project is fueled by the duo’s desire to honor their respective Mexican and German heritages in a new and collaborative way. 

Sonically, the duo have crafted a sound that meshes cumbia rhythms, motorik groove-driven krautrock and electronic music — with lyrics written and sung in Spanish, English and German. 

The Portland-based duo’s third album, Digital Exposure was released last year through San Francisco-based Broken Clover Records. The album sees the duo continuing their ongoing collaboration with Pinewave Studio‘s Johann Wagner. The album thematically touches on social constructs, our impact on the environment and embracing every day life. 

Last year, I wrote about album single “La Ballena,“a slow-burning and lysergic song featuring oscillating synths, fluttering and looping flute, cumbia rhythms and a relentless motorik groove paired with lyrics chanted and crooned in a sonorous Spanish. While sonically being a feverish synthesis of Kraftwerk and Meridian Brothers, “La Ballena” for me conjures an image of a dancer on narcotics, gently swaying to the song.

The album’s latest single “Non Zero Sum” sees the duo pairing skittering cumbia rhythms with glistening Kraftwerk-inspired synths and blown out beats to create a sensual, sinuous bed for their ethereal harmonizing in Spanish. “Non Zero Sum” manages to bring a trippy synthesis of Trans Europe Express-era Kraftwerk and Señor Coconut‘s El Baile Alemán.

Directed and edited by Alicia J. Rose, the accompanying video for “Non Zero Sum” sees the duo as space age Druids changing in the woods and drumming in a disco wonderland, complete with kaleidoscopic effects.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New VIdeo: Joseph Shares Anthemic “Nervous System”

Portland, OR-based sibling indie pop trio Joseph — Natalie Closner Schepman and her two, younger twin sisters Meegan and Allison — derive their name from two different sources: their grandfather Jo and the tiny town of Joseph, OR, in which he was born and raised. The Closner Sisters grew up in a musical household: their dad was a jazz singer and drummer, while their mom was a theater teacher. But their group can trace its origins back to around 2014: Closner Schepman had been pursuing a career as a singer/songwriter, recruited her sisters to join her in a new project.

When the Closners began working together, they quickly recognized an irresistible and undeniable creative chemistry.

The trio quickly developed a reputation for playing intimate house shows, in which they would accompany themselves with acoustic guitar and a foot drum. Within their first yet of being a group, they self-released their debut, 2014s Native Dreamer Kin, which caught the attention of ATO Records, who signed the group the following year.

After releasing 2015’s, ATO Sessions EP, an acoustic, two song, digital EP and accompanying video series, the sibling trio went on to release their Mike Mogis-produced, label debut 2016’s I’m Alone, No You’re Not, which featured the smash hit “White Flag.” “White Flag” landed on Spotify’s US Viral Top Ten Chart within days of its release. By that October, the track landed at #1 on the Adult Alternative Charts.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the trio made appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Later . . . with Jools Holland, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Conan, CBS This Morning and Today. They also opened for James Bay during a sold out, 2016 arena tour — and they made festival stops at Coachella, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Newport Folk Festival, Sasquatch Festival, Glastonbury Festival, Outside Lands Festival, Pilgrimage Music Festival and several others.

2019’s Christian “Leggy” Langdon-produced album Good Luck, Kid saw the trio pushing their sound in a grittier, more dynamic direction while retaining the gorgeous harmonies and earnest vocal deliveries that won them acclaim across the blogosphere and elsewhere. “The through-line of the album is this idea of moving into the driver’s seat of your own life-recognizing that you’re an adult now, and everything’s up to you from this moment on,” Natalie Closner Schepman says in press notes.  “You’re not completely sure of how to get where you need to go, and you don’t have any kind of a map to help you. It’s just the universe looking down on you like, ‘Good luck, kid.’”

The sibling trio’s fourth official album, the Tucker Martine and  Christian “Leggy” Langdon co-produced The Sun is slated for an April 28, 2023 release through their longtime label home ATO Records. The album reportedly sees the group working with a collection of new collaborators and making yet another vibrant sonic shift while retaining the craft, three-part harmonies and hard-fought and harder-won lyrical wisdom that they’ve been known for throughout their career. But unlike its predecessors, The Sun sees the sibling trio taking a decidedly more hands-on role in the production process. The result is an album of material that sees Joseph spinning incredibly complex concepts into anthemic, sing-along ready pop that serves as a backdrop for the trio’s fearless and deeply personal storytelling from each of their perspectives.

Thea album sees the trio focusing their soul-searching songwriting on the quietly damaging force that keep us from living fully in our truth — e.g., gaslighting, cultural condition, unconscious yet painfully limiting self-beliefs and the like. Drawing on hard lessons from relationships and personal growth through therapy, The Sun reportedly shares stories of taking control of your own fate, making difficult decisions in the name of becoming yourself and weathering the highs and lows of love while keeping the faith — and tending to ourselves with presence and compassion. “All of our therapists were a huge influence on this album,” the sibling trio say in press notes.

The Sun‘s first single “Nervous Single” is a punchy pop song rooted in deep, personal experience, rousingly anthemic, sing-along friendly hooks and big-hearted, heart-on-sleeve compassion. Fittingly the song — and its narrator — discusses being our own lifeline during times of anxiety, struggle and uncertainty. “It’s about self regulating and tending to ourselves with presence and compassion, rather than frantically reaching outside of ourselves,” the trio explain. Alison Closner adds “I’ve struggled with a lot of anxiety over the years, at times a constant inner storm, and it’s been easy to look outside myself to feel safe and secure. I’ve fought to find my inner peace, and through that process I’ve found that so much of the time I already have what it takes to calm my nervous system.”

Directed by Vanessa Pla, the accompanying woozy video for “Nervous System” features the sibling trio in matching sienna-colored suits with blue tops and black boots in a blue and white background. Through the use of spinning camera, slow pans and surreal activities, the video evokes and emphasizes the song’s central themes.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Blue Canopy Teams Up with Misty Boyce and Patrick J. Smith on Slow-Burning “Stranger At The Door”

Portland, OR-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Alex Schiff started his music career as a co-writer for indie outfit Modern Rivals — and with Modern Rivals, Schiff has shared stages with the likes of Ra Ra Riot, Stars, and The Black Keys.

Since his time with Modern Rivals, Schiff has stepped out into the spotlight as a solo artist with his recording project Blue Canopy, which sees the Portland-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist combining versatile songwriting chops and exuberant melodies to convey nostalgia as a force to move forward. Sonically, Blue Canopy sees Schiff weaving dream pop, psych rock-inspired guitars and expansive electronic soundscapes. The end result is work that’s introspective at a time when self-reflection seems more crucial than ever.

So far, Schiff has released two Blue Canopy EPs 2020’s Mild Anxiety and last yer’s Sleep While You Can, which featured additional instrumentation and co-production from A Beacon School‘s Patrick J. Smith.

Schiff’s latest Blue Canopy single, the slow-burning and meditative “Stranger At The Door” features vocals from Misty Boyce, who has worked with Sara Bareilles and BØRNS and guitar from A Beacon School’s Patrick J. Smith. Featuring glistening synths arpeggios, skittering beats, a sinuous bass line paired with Boyce’s gorgeous vocals, “Stranger At The Door” sounds like a synthesis of Currents-era Tame Impala and Quiet Storm soul while centered around earnest, seemingly lived-in lyricism.

Interestingly, “Stranger At The Door” examines social anxieties in the COVID era, but written from the perspective of his dog Banjo, who has become increasingly anxious and paranoid over the past few months, as the world returns to a certain version o of normalcy.

‘”Stranger At The Door’ is a song from my dog Banjo’s perspective. He’s been super anxious and paranoid since we moved to a new house. He’s especially worried that there is someone or something dangerous at the front door. Some of it, and the inspiration is from his perspective. I relate it later in the song to my own social anxieties that have escalated since COVID. I often don’t feel comfortable in my own skin, or without a mask, or around people in general.”

Directed by Alex Beebee, the accompanying video for “Stranger At The Door” is a surrealistic fever dream featuring a mix of animation, grainy super 8-like live footage rooted in nostalgia.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Marion Belle is a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter, who over the better part of the past decade, has released material as a solo artist, with late, longtime collaborator Sam Mehran, Yves Tumor’s Sean Bowie, and with his primary gig, Fatal Jamz.

With Fatal Jamz, Belle has toured with Sky Ferreira, Smiths Westerns, Lemon Twigs and Christopher Owens and a lengthy list of others. Back during the fall of 2018, Belle was closing out a raucous two year record cycle supporting his full-length debut Coverboy, an album that i-D called “a glam rock Romeo & Juliet.”

Returning to Los Angeles with a batch of new songs and fans craving more music, Belle was looking for ways to produce another album. Around that time, he met Sam Mehran, a London-based musician and producer, who quickly achieved fame, as a co-founder of Test Icicles, a band that he started with his friends Dev Hynes and Rory Atwell. Mehran was an obsession to all who knew him: At once kind, generous and warm, hilarious, brilliant, he would frequently vanish into a world of his own. As it turned out, he was used to being alone, or with his guitar, since he left home at 18.

One night, while in his secret world, Mehran hoped on a flight to Portland, OR, slipping out of the UK and out of Test Icicles forever. By the time, he had answered an email introduction and met Belle outside an East Los Angeles lockout, Mehran’s myth and work had traveled through a decade’s worth of talismanic lo-fi albums released under a variety of handles.

Upon his return to Los Angeles — and the neighborhood he called his spiritual home, the British-born producer and musician had tapped into a wildly prolific period, producing Samantha Urbani’s Policies of Power EP, Puro Instinct‘s Autodrama and Ssion’s 2018 full-length 0.

“He was tapped at the time we met,” said Belle. “He was like, man I’m tired of sitting behind laptops and doing this (mimics typing.) He was like, ‘I don’t care man.’” Spiritually wiped and struggling to come out of a painful place, and feeling cast aside, he and Belle found shared ground. “In my own way I was in a similar place. But we started writing right away because for both of us making music, the process of it, was always the solution, it was always the answer. 

Between February and late July wrote about ten tracks. “Promenade,” was written the first day they met. “I told Sam I was into the Bad Boy Records‘ production and played him a Mase song. We basically jumped into it from there. When we wrote “Way of Life,” we knew that we had an album because that song epitomized the kind of ride or die songs we both wanted to make. That song was our baby because it’s about how music is the way of life. 

On July 21, 2018 Belle dropped Mehran off at his apartment after spending the day in Van Nuys scoring a pair of NS-10 speakers. Mehran was set to mix their EP the next day. But tragically, that would be the last time the Belle would see Mehran again.

Sometime on July 27, 2018 Mehran committed suicide, succumbing to mental health challenges and demons he had battled throughout most of his life. “I think that our bond was profound because we both felt, after all we had each been through, we had been brought together for a reason,” Belle says of his collaboration and friendship with Mehran. “And that reason was to help each other to not give up. Sam lived and created in a different way. It was actual magic. And I knew every day that this chance to create with him was going to be one of the greatest treasures of my life. He was incredibly happy and up, up to that very last day we were together. We were going to take on the world, defeat all our own curses, and he was going to be everything he ever wanted to be. In losing Sam, so many people lost the light of their life. And the world lost so much incredible music.”

Belle’s long-awaited sophomore, full-length Fatal Jamz album is forthcoming.I’m sure more details will be coming in the near future. But in the meantime, the album’s second and latest single, the ethereal “Eternity” is centered around gentle layers of atmospheric synths and twinkling keys paired with a sinuous bass line, glistening guitars, a propulsive back beat and Belle’s achingly plaintive vocals. Written in the months following Mehran’s death, “Eternity” sonically manages to subtly bring Avalon-era Roxy Music to mind, as the new single is rooted in heartbreak and unfathomable and inexplicable loss.

“This song, and the whole album really, came to me from another place, truly like a gift from the gods to help me make something beautiful out of all that and heal, move forward positively,” Belle says. “Moments of ecstasy are always present, like doors for us to open anytime we choose. When I sing ‘Eternity’ and enter the music, I open that eternal doorway and ascend.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Portland, OR-based electro pop duo Dreckig — married couple Papi Fimbres and Shana Lindbeck — derive their project’s name from the German word for dirty. Believing that destiny led them to meet each other, the project is fueled by the duo’s desire to honor their respective Mexican and German heritages in a new and collaborative way.

Sonically, the duo have crafted a sound that meshes cumbia rhythms, motorik groove-driven krautrock and electronic music — with lyrics written and sung in Spanish, English and German.

Slated for release on Friday through San Francisco-based Broken Clover Records, the Portland-based duo’s third album Digital Exposure sees the duo continuing their ongoing collaboration with Pinewave Studio‘s Johann Wagner. The album thematically touches on social constructs, our impact on the environment and embracing every day life.

Digital Exposure‘s latest single “La Ballena” is a slow-burning and lysergic bop centered around oscillating synths, fluttering and looping flute, cumbia rhythms and a relentless motorik groove paired with lyrics chanted and crooned in a sonorous Spanish. While sonically being a feverish synthesis of Kraftwerk and Meridian Brothers, “La Ballena” for me conjures an image of a dancer on narcotics, gently swaying to the song.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Single: The Shivas Share a Summery and Trippy Blast

Since their formation back in 2006, the Portland, OR-based psych rock outfit The Shivas — Jared Molyneux (vocals, guitar), Eric Shanafelt (bass), Kristin Leonard (vocals, drums) and their newest member Jeff City (guitar) — have honed a sound that conjures the lysergic, late ’60s-to-early ’70s rock ‘n’ roll and pop: The Mamas & The Papas-like harmonies? Sure thing! Big guitar riffs? Sure thing! And it sounds as though it were recored on top-of-the-line-quarter-inch, four-track tape machine? Yep, that too!

So recently, the folks at Suicide Squeeze convinced the members of The Shivas to take part in the label’s Pinks & Purples Digital Singles Series. The Portland-based psych rock outfit contributed “Doom Revolver,” a fittingly lysergic jam featuring enormous, power chord driven riffs, thunderous drumming, Molyneux’s and Leonard’s gorgeous and uncanny harmonies within a head-spinning song structure. Play loud, tune out, man.

“‘Doom Revolver’ was written over the last couple of years,” The Shivas’ Jared Molyneux explains. “It was recorded in January of 2022 at Trash Treasury, and was produced by Cameron Spies. The cover image is a polaroid from a real life UFO encounter in themiddle of nowhere, Oregon. . .”